Falfurrias to Encino Road

The road exists because of a federal formula. The Texas Highway Department was created in 1917, the Handbook of Texas says, originally only to qualify the state for money under the 1916 Federal Aid Road Act, which required centralized state control of road building. Counties kept maintaining roads until 1925, when the state took over and counties had only to supply right-of-way. That November the attorney general sued the highway commission over alleged "sweetheart" road contracts, courts voided many of them and the commissioners resigned.

What the plaque says

Falfurrias to Encino Road Visible from this site is a small section of roadway that dates from the earliest efforts of the State Highway Program to oversee road construction. In 1918, one year after the establishment of the Texas Highway Department, plans were drawn for the Brooks County segment of what would become U.S. 281. That portion of the road constructed in 1918 was a soft sand thoroughfare terminating at Encino (6.5 mi. S). A caliche surface was applied in 1920, and the concrete paving now in evidence was laid in 1928. The remaining portion of the Falfurrias to Encino Road is a reminder of early road construction methods and transportation networks into the Rio Grande Valley. (2002)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heritage Museum at Falfurrias — 13 mi
  A free town museum of ranch gear, a Texas Ranger room and 99,000 photo negatives, in the town Edward Lasater built around his railroad and his Jersey cows.
• Don Pedrito Jaramillo Shrine — 15 mi
  The grave and shrine of the folk healer of Los Olmos, a place of prayer where South Texans still leave candles and letters for the curandero who took no fee.
• Kenedy Ranch Museum of South Texas — 25 mi
  A museum in the Kenedy Pasture Company's 1927 office in Sarita, telling how Mifflin Kenedy and three generations of his family shaped the Wild Horse Desert, with murals and an audio guide.

More markers nearby

• Brooks County — 3.8 mi
• El Encino del Poso (The Oak in the Hole) — 7.9 mi
• Falfurrias — 13 mi
• James Abijah Brooks — 14 mi